Chicago’s media prepares for NATO (Update 1)

As you know by now, Chicago is hosting the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit at McCormick Place this coming Sunday and Monday. There are numerous street closures, parking restrictions, bus reroutes, and train station closures. Security is being beefed up all over town, including on public transportation and in downtown office buildings.

And oh yeah… there’s going to be protesters… lots of them. There’s also the potential for mayhem, as similar-type gatherings in other cities have wrecked havoc.

Chicago’s five major news operations are planning to cover the NATO summit, along with the extra-circular activity. A few stations are adding and/or expanding newscasts in various dayparts.

There’s also potential disruptions of regular programming this weekend and Monday on Chicago’s TV stations as events warrant. NBC and ABC has playoff action in the NHL and NBA, respectively. WGN-TV (Friday and Sunday) and Fox (Saturday) has the White Sox-Cubs interleague series. Several big prime-time events are taking place this Sunday night with the season finales of Fox’s animation shows (with a Lady Gaga appearance on The Simpsons) and Celebrity Apprentice on NBC. ABC is airing The Billboard Music Awards.

Here’s what Chicago’s major news stations are planning for this weekend, in addition to their regularly scheduled newscasts. Note this post will be updated to add additional information as it comes in:

WBBM (CBS 2 News): CBS 2, which usually doesn’t have weekend morning newscasts, is adding 8 a.m. and noon on Saturday and 7 a.m. and at 10:30 a.m.

WMAQ (NBC Chicago News): WMAQ is adding a Sunday 11 a.m. hour-long newscast and expanding its Sunday 5 p.m. and 10 p.m. newscasts to a full hour.

WLS (ABC 7 News): ABC 7 is adding a noon Saturday and 10:30 a.m. newscast.

WGN News: Station announced it was expanding its 6 a.m. Sunday newscasts to three hours and is adding a 5 p.m. newscast on Saturday and after the game on Sunday.

WFLD (Fox Chicago News): WFLD is adding a 5 p.m. newscast on both Saturday and Sunday, and 8 a.m. on Sunday.

Also of note: according to a poster on the CRM message board, WLS has closed the curtains on its State Street studioside windows to passers-through until the end of the summit. And according to its Facebook page, the station’s Windy City Live is scheduled to air Monday at 9 a.m., but without a studio audience.

And President Obama is scheduled to hold a news conference from Chicago at 3 p.m. on Monday, and is being carried by all local stations.

T Dog Media will be open all weekend long and Monday, with any major media-related NATO coverage news (and of course, stories on the recent upfront presentations in New York.) And for the latest commentary on  NATO media coverage (along with the snark), you can follow T Dog Media on Twitter by clicking here (the Twitter feed is also on this site, to the right.)

This post was updated on 2012-05-19 at 11:31 p.m.